


Fantasy

by alecmagnuslwb



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Softness, guest appearances by two of my favorite jl dark members
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26157847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alecmagnuslwb/pseuds/alecmagnuslwb
Summary: Taken by a Djinn and being drained of his life John is shown a fantasy world where he and Zee just get to be.
Relationships: John Constantine/Zatanna Zatara
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	Fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> Writer’s month day 28, prompt: Fantasy.

The sunlight streams in through the parted curtains, a bright streaming light that tells him they’ve gotten to sleep in today. He closes his eyes peaceful.

“John, wake up,” Zatanna’s voice says from somewhere above him, melodic and slow.

John hums eyes still closed. “Five more minutes,” he grumbles tossing an arm over his closed eyes.

“No, John now,” she says picking up his arm. “You have to wake up now.”

Her tone has shifted, urgency in it he doesn’t understand.

“John, please wake up,” she says the tone growing more worried with every word. “Come back to me.”

Finally his eyes open and she’s over him looking well rested and bright, her face not matching her tone. The sunlight is streaming around her like a halo.

“Wake up Constantine,” she says once again. He’s about to tell her he is awake, he’s looking at her in the warm morning light awake and alert, but before he can she’s pressing a hand to his chest hard. A sharp jolt goes through him, his vision blurs.

When it clears there’s no longer sun streaming in, Zatanna’s face still hovers over him, but not well rested, she looks exhausted like she hasn’t slept in days a track of drying tears on her cheeks. A halo of light still surrounds her head, but it’s from a flickering cracked lightbulb instead.

“There you are,” she says her voice washing over in relief. The hand pressed to his chest moves to his neck rubbing gently.

“Zee?” he says groggily taking in his surroundings as he sits up, she helps him hands hovering in worry. No longer is he in a bed surrounded by golden silk sheets, he’s on a dirty basement floor the stench of death around them instead of the wafting scent of fresh coffee.

“You’re okay, the Djinn’s gone,” she says, he feels magic, her magic coursing over his skin softly checking him over for injury.

Djinn. He remembers now, the string of disappearances that Boston had caught onto, the bodies drained of their very lifeforce nothing left but husks. Then the Djinn he’d tracked without backup assuming it wasn’t strong enough to take him on yet. He’d been wrong, it hadn’t been one Djinn working alone. A struggle comes to memory but the details of where and how escape him. All he knows is it led to him here weak and tired in some abandoned old basement.

Clearer in his mind is the fantasy world the Djinn had sent him to, the world where he wasn’t being drained of his life slowly. The world the Djinn used to immobilize him and take his real life away.

“Help me get him up,” Zatanna says to someone. Andrew comes into view pulling John’s arm over his shoulders and helping him up, Zatanna settles his other arm on her own shoulders steadying him. His legs feel like jelly as he tries to walk. “Easy,” Zatanna says bringing her free hand to his chest.

“I can help you banish all of this,” she says turning her head to the side where John now sees Boston hovering.

“Go take care of him I got this,” he says shaking his head at her, a stern tone in his voice John’s rarely heard. He floats away after nodding at John leaving no room for argument.

“Portal me back here after I help you get him settled and I’ll make sure this mess gets cleaned up,” Andrew says shifting his hold on John. The shift allows him to survey the room, it’s a mess of death and destruction. Skeletons of god knows how many previous victims are piled around and three bodies that look nearly fresh probably not dead more than two days hang near where John had been hanging as well. The floor is soaked in black sludge, the blood of Djinn’s, the decapitated and demolished bodies of five of them laying in waste. He can sense Zatanna’s angry magic hovering around at least three of them still.

“You’ve used enough of your energy as is these past few days, leave the cleanup to us,” Andrew says pleading with Zee to let them handle things. 

Days? Has it really been days since he tracked down that single, scrawny looking Djinn, has he been missing all that time? No wonder Zee looks so tired.

Zatanna nods a grateful look in her tired eyes. She brings up a hand and quietly conjures up a portal that they all step through, John practically being carried by the both of them. Andrew helps Zee settle him on the bed in their shared room in the House of Mystery before she brings up another portal for him to go back to help Boston.

He settles a hand on Zee’s shoulder and squeezes once, she reaches up grabbing his hand for a moment and giving him a tired smile before he steps through the portal backwards.

He feels a little out of body as Zatanna strips him down to his underwear her hands softly healing every mark she comes across. The rope burns around his wrist and the ache in his arms from where the Djinn had suspended him from the ceiling slip away as she casts spells of healing under her breath. She leaves the room for a moment after that. He closes his eyes and when he opens them she’s gone and for a moment he worries this too has all been a fantasy.

She notices the panicked look on his face when she comes back in and rushes over sitting the tray in her hands down. She crouches between his knees, resting her hands on them.

“I’m here,” she says rubbing her hands slowly up and down his thighs. Her polish is chipped and her fishnets are ripped in little spots he notices, both the product of her nervous habit to pick at them when she’s stressed. “I’m here.”

She repeats it like a mantra till she’s certain his eyes clear and he reaches out a hand to run his knuckles down her soft cheek leaning into the touch. It’s only then she seems certain that he believes this is real.

After a few minutes she pulls away just enough to grab the glass of water she’d brought in encouraging him to drink it down. He does in a few quick gulps, his body realizing how thirsty he is at the first sip.

“I got the poison and paralytics all out of your system with magic, but it’ll probably be a few days before you get your energy back fully,” she says softly her hands still moving across his skin, reminding him she’s here and this is real while he picks at the food she’d brought in as well.

He eats about half of it before giving up.

“How long?” he asks the first thing he’s said aside from her name since she woke him up.

“Three days,” she says lifting up and moving the tray to sit beside him. She gently uses her fingers to tilt his head her way. “One more and I would have lost you.”

On the fourth day a Djinn’s victim dies in their fantasy and in real life, always without exception there is no turning back from that point. John swallows hard and nods.

“It all felt so fucking real,” he says, angry at himself for not figuring it out, for playing into the fantasy and letting the hold on him become so strong. “I should have known; I should have been able to fight back.”

The fantasy wasn’t some white picket fence life, but it was something that John knows deep down he’d give anything to have. It was a world where his mother never died, where he still had magic but not a darkness pulling at one hand constantly. A world where he met Zatanna in a bar one night and they bonded over magic and fell in love easy and simple. A world where he woke up next to her every day in a shared apartment and went to work at a club she owned and performed at every weekend.

A world where they weren’t constantly fighting off apocalypses, where Batman didn’t have their phone numbers and Boston and Andrew were just two living men that happened to be their best friends. Hell, Swampy was even there, Alec and Abby Holland their friendly neighbors they did regular date nights with.

It was a world where John wasn’t jaded and damned. A world where the magic in his blood wasn’t the only thing he has to offer anyone. A world where he didn’t make the woman sitting next to him cry.

She turns pulling John in as close as she can from the angle she’s sitting, gripping his hands tightly.

“It’s not your fault,” she says. It is. He shouldn’t have followed that thing without backup, without telling her where he was. Then she wouldn’t look as tired as he feels. “You couldn’t have fought back, you fight a Djinn once it has its hooks in you, you die faster. By living out the fantasy you gave me more time to find you.”

Logically he knows that, but he’s John Constantine if anyone could have pissed off a Djinn enough and fought back he likes to think it’s him.

“Still,” he says looking at her with defeated eyes. She shakes her head pulling him into a strong embrace. She doesn’t say anything just holds him close, her fingers carding through his hair.

In the fantasy the Djinn had expertly crafted up for him from his subconscious he felt like he could give her everything, here he has nothing to offer her and yet she takes everything without hesitation.

She pulls back after a while running a hand across the more than a stubble that’s grown across his chin.

“You should get some sleep,” she says resting her forehead against his. He protests despite the fact his body is begging for a good night’s rest.

“I just slept for three full days, Zee,” he says. She lets out a deep breath her eyes closing slowly, but her head staying put resting against his.

“A paralytically induced dreamscape while hanging from the ceiling for three days and being drained of your life force is not real sleep,” she says. She pulls back then her eyebrow raised in challenge. A look on her tired, beautiful face that’s daring him to argue with her right now.

He thinks of the fantasy world where she never looked tired, where she never had to challenge his stubbornness over such serious things and relents.

“Only if you join me, I know you haven’t slept in three days either,” he says brushing a stray hair from her face.

“Damn, I look that bad, huh?” she says, the joke falling a little flat with how tired her words are.

“You’re gorgeous, but you’re also exhausted,” he says cause it’s the simple truth.

She smiles softly and nods.

“Okay, give me a minute,” she says standing up from the bed. “Can you get settled?”

“I may have been on death’s door, but I think I can lift some sheets and get under them,” he says a bit of his usual snark returning.

She snorts and steps away. John moves and damn he might have been wrong about his capability to lift some sheets and get under them. His whole body feels heavy, but he manages somehow to move around leaning back against the headboard and watching as she changes from her battle-ready outfit to an old The Clash t-shirt that used to be his.

It speaks to just how tired she is, how tired her magic is that she’s doing this manually. John’s seen her banish her clothes and change full outfits with a wave of her hand more times than he could possibly count.

Once she’s done she flips the light switch off and crawls into her side of the bed. John slides down slowly to settle on his side as she does the same. He winces slightly once he settles the tiredness in his bones leaving him sore in certain spots still.

Zatanna’s hand is on his arm in an instant the start of healing spell at the tip of her tongue.

“It’s alright, luv, just tired. Save your energy,” he says grabbing her hand lightly and pulling it so he can thread their fingers together near his heart.

She looks him in the eyes for a moment searching for a lie before settling believing what he says. She scoots over keeping their hands joined between them and wrapping her other arm tightly around him like he’s not the only one in need of confirmation this is real.

Maybe tomorrow he’ll tell her about the fantasy world he saw, about the old insecurities it brought up of how he’s no good for her, but for tonight he’ll choose to get lost in what he has, in what’s real and perfect as is and hold on.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [alecmagnuslwb](https://alecmagnuslwb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
